Let the Rain Fall
by Dragon Elexus
Summary: It's Peridot's second every rain storm since arriving on Earth. Lapis has long since lost track of how many she's experienced.


**Let the Rain Fall**

When an odd patterning sound started on the roof of the barn, at first, Peridot did not know what to make of it. She pressed pause on the TV, sitting bolt upright to hear the sound better. It started gently— pit pat pit pat pit pat— then steadily grew faster and louder, until finally the rhythm of it clicked into place. She'd heard it once before.

Peridot bounded down the stairs, to find Lapis Lazuli standing, her fists clenched, wary and alert.

"It's okay!" Peridot said. "It's just rain."

"…Rain?" said Lazuli, slowly.

"Yes!" She felt very pleased that she'd finished repairing the hole in the barn yesterday, so preventing their lodgings from becoming completed soaked. She felt even more pleased that there was something she could help teach Lapis Lazuli about. She bounded to the barn doors, throwing them open with a heavy shove. The green landscape had been transformed into something new and darker. The blue sky typical of this planet's days were gone, replaced by an expanse of rolling greys and blacks. Water fell from the sky in sheets, distorting the view, making it seem strange and unfamiliar.

A flare of light snapped across the sky, blinding. It left the tingle of electricity and the smell of ozone in its wake. Three seconds later, a heavy boom rolled in the distance. Peridot couldn't help but flinch, despite herself.

"It's okay," Peridot said. "It's only thunder and lightning. A natural phenomenon. Steven explained it to me."

Lapis Lazuli came to stand besides her. "I know what it is."

Peridot sneaked a glance at the blue Gem. She too had begun staring out at the rain. Her hands were no longer clenched, but there was that fierce intensity on her face that she wore so often.

Peridot hated that expression. Lapis Lazuli only ever used it when she was unhappy— which was, quite frankly, the majority of the time.

Well. She shouldn't be surprised, she supposed. Lapis Lazuli had said that she no longer enjoyed water, not after getting herself and Jasper trapped in a fusion beneath this planet's ocean. Of course she would dislike the phenomenon of raining.

But Peridot wasn't going to allow Lapis's own poor mood ruin her own. It had been a long time since she saw rain— or, no, not a long time at all, really. But it _felt_ like a long time. She had only just been captured by the Crystal Gems, only just lost her limb enhancers, only just opening up to the possibility that there may have been some way to escape her seemingly inevitable death after all. The sheer number of experiences, and the intensity of them all, somehow seemed to outweigh everything that had happened to her before she'd arrived on the planet.

She took a step out of the shelter of the barn, and stood in the rain.

It was cold. That had shocked her, the first time. The way Steven had explained it, she'd expected the water to be boiling hot. But no, the rain was cool, and pleasant, and refreshing. Peridot tilted her head up the sky, and watched drop after drop land on her visor, blurring her vision. She felt it land on her chest, her shoulders, her legs. She felt it land on her hair, slowly working its way into the thick bristles.

Water. Homeworld never had much use for water, aside from its functions as a lubricant and coolant in engineering systems. Peridot had discovered that water was actually quite pleasant. She'd has enjoyed swimming in the smaller-than-average lake she constructed, finding the sensation of weightlessness that the experienced produced quite unique. This was very different from swimming, however. That was peaceful and tranquil.

Surrounded by the wind and the rain and thunder, the rainstorm made her feel like she was standing in the middle of something huge and powerful. Like looking out the window of a spaceship, to see entire nebulae spreading out in front of you, so huge and immense that you could barely even grasp it.

"What are you doing?" Lapis Lazuli asked, from behind her.

Peridot started. She had almost forgotten the other Gem was there. "Standing in the rain."

"Why?"

"Because— because it feels nice!"

The words came out in a rush, Peridot nearly shouting them. She was aware of how ridiculous it sounded, and was expecting laughter or disbelief in response.

But Lapis did not laugh, like any Gem on Homeworld would have done. She did not look disbelieving. She simply looked… curious.

Peridot shuffled awkwardly. She wished that she could better explain the sensation, explain why having drops all of her felt so enjoyable, but she didn't have the words. Or rather, she _did_ have the words, but she was afraid that if she tried to say them, they'd get all mixed up and muddled, and she'd just end up saying them all wrong. She wished that she still had her tape recorder, or her limb enhancers, so she could practice before hand.

So she just shrugged helplessly.

Lapis Lazuli stared at her and the rain for a long, drawn out moment. And then, she too, stepped out into the rain.

For a while she just stood there, head down, watching the water pool in a puddle at her feet. Then slowly, Lapis held out her hands and cupped them together, capturing the water in her palms. As the water began to overflow, she laughed.

"What's funny?" Peridot asked.

Lapis shook her head. "Nothing. Nothing, really. It's just— I didn't know it felt this way."

"Rain?"

"Exactly." Lapis opened her hands, letting the water collected there drop to the ground with the splash. "I saw so much rain. So many storms. Sometimes they were so strong I felt certain that I was going to be swept away. But I never actually got to feel them."

"What do you mean?" Peridot asked.

For a brief moment, the expression on Lapis's face had smoothed, but now there was another flash of that characteristic anger. "Do you really not know?" Lapis demanded.

"No!" said Peridot, angry in turn. She hated how everyone always assumed she knew stuff, and never bothered to explain until she said something wrong!

Lapis gave a bitter snort. "Didn't you get any kind of brief before you took me as prisoner?"

Peridot folded her arms. "Yes, I did," she said, shortly. "But all it said was that you'd been left captured on Earth for an extended period of time, and that you would have information regarding the Gems who were disrupting warp system repair. Nothing else."

The blue Gem looked taken aback— at Peridot, or at the whole situation, it wasn't entirely clear. "Really?"

"Yes, really."' Peridot's voice became quieter. "I'm beginning to realise that many of the reports Homeworld provided me were missing… crucial information."

(Information about Earth, about the Cluster, about humans, about rebellion, and the Crystal Gems, and stars knew what else.)

"You can say that," said Lapis, with a short laugh. She looked at Peridot headlong. "Okay. So do you want to know who captured me on Earth? Homeworld."

"You were a Crystal Gem?" Peridot asked, taken by surprise. Lapis's intense dislike of all the rebels barring Steven had been quite obvious.

"No," said Lapis. Another peel of thunder rolled. "The Crystal Gems were the ones who attacked and poofed me. Homeworld picked me up, stuck me in a mirror, and interrogated me, assuming that I had to be the enemy. I couldn't give them the answers they wanted. Then they evacuated, and they abandoned me. I sat on that forsaken galaxy warp for thousands of years, before Pearl found me and stuffed me in her gem without a second thought!

"And you know?" she continued. "I didn't blame Homeworld. I really didn't. The Crystal Gems were the ones who'd caused the rebellion, they were the ones to blame for me getting captured. Homeworld had just made a mistake. When Steven let me out of the mirror and healed me, I figured— I figured I could finally go back. Explain what had happened. And then everything could be the way it used to be.

"Turns out I was wrong! No sooner did I get there then _you_ went and dragged me back!" Lapis snapped. "You were always shouting at me, asking for more information, and— and then there was _Jasper_ , punching walls and screaming in my face. I never wanted to come back here, but you didn't even care! Nobody on Homeworld did!"

As she'd spoke, Lapis's wings had stretched out from her back, growing larger and larger as the rain had continued to fall, until finally, they stretched three times the size of her body. Rage radiated from her face, vivid as the lightning, and Peridot realised just how undefended she was.

"I," Peridot began. She didn't know what to say. She wished Steven was here. He was good with words. He'd be able to help.

But he wasn't, so she'd just have to do her best to work it out by herself. "I— I'm sorry, Lazuli," Peridot said. "That— that was wrong of me. I did not know how you had become trapped on this planet, and I never attempted to find out. All I could think about was how— how useful you'd be to the mission, I never even considered how— how you might feel about it. And I wish— or rather, I never wanted for it to happen this way."

Lapis stared at her. Slowly, her wings lowered, furling in on themselves.

"However," Peridot said, after giving her some time to carefully plan her words. "I think the situation could have become far worse."

Lapis glared. "What do you mean?"

"It's just…" Peridot rubbed her hands together, behind her back. "If the ship hadn't crashed, we wouldn't have gotten stuck here. And then the Earth would have been destroyed—"

"What?"

"Oh. I suppose you don't know." Peridot rushed through a quick explanation of the forced-fusion experiments and the Cluster which had been forming in the Earth's centre.

Lapis looked unsettled, wrapping her arms and wings up around her chest. " _That's_ why you were so desperate to get here?"

"My mission was to check on the Cluster's progress and make sure its development was on schedule. I ended up drilling to the centre of the planet to attempt to destroy it, instead."

Lapis stared uncomfortably at the ground, as if trying to stare through the rock to the Cluster waiting beneath. "Did you?"

"No. Steven put it inside a giant bubble."

"Oh."

"But if I hadn't told him about it, and gotten the Crystal Gems' assistance in building the Drill… the Earth would have been destroyed. All of it!" Peridot waved her arms, throwing them up, trying to make a single gesture which would somehow encapsulate the barn, and the fields, and the clouds and the lightning and the rain. "All of it sacrificed, for a single geoweapon."

A heavy gust of wind came up, splattering Peridot's visor with more water. Once she'd managed to wipe it away, and could see clearly once more, she found Lapis Lazuli standing there, picking leaves out of her hair. Peridot expected her to look annoyed, but Lapis simply looked… thoughtful. She was turning a leaf over and over in her hand.

Still staring at the leaf— dull orange, stained brown with dirt— Lapis said, "…that wouldn't have been right. I don't really like Earth, but… I never wanted it destroyed."

Peridot gave a hesitant smile.

Lapis didn't return it. But her face did soften, and she said, "The rain is nice."

Then she pulled her wings in, folded her legs, and laid down on the wet ground. She didn't even seem to care about the dirty water seeping into her dress and hair. After a moment, Peridot took a seat besides her. The mud was strange and squishy beneath her. Tentatively, she too lied down on her back, and stared up at the sky.

In silence, the pair watched the rain fall.

oOo

 **Author's Note** : Last week, I was going for a swim at the local pool, when it started raining. Not just raining, but pouring. I mean, tropical monsoon here. No thunder or lightning, just so much rain that you could barely tell where the pool ended and the sky began.

And it was so beautiful. So I decided that I wanted to write something about it. And that somehow became Peridot and Lapis...


End file.
